Going to Ground: black crazy ants

Nature calls me. I relish every biome except desert. I suppose I would go full-on woodland hermit and live in a tree or cave were it not for myrmecophobia - my fear of ants. It isn't an inexplicable fear. It's tied to a specific experience.

An acquaintance of my mother invited me to her daughter's slumber party. I wouldn't have been much older than eight. 

The party itself had all the right elements: Light as a Feather; Stiff as a Board, scary tales, braiding hair. Typical stuff. It was held in the family's outdoor living room (a large room attached to a house, with three walls being glass). The ceiling was a series of skylights. 

I don't know when we all fell asleep under the stars. All I remember is my eyes popping open because somebody screamed. 

I sat up. Weird black coffee grinds dropped from my face and arms. I tried to wipe the filth off my face, out of my eyes, spitting out bits of it. And then I began to scream. I was covered in black crazy ants.

Ants. Mother fucking black ants!

More screams joined ours. Soon we all were thrashing around in the soft morning sunrise. Thousands of ants. Thousands! A multiple queen colony. They had crept onto our bodies, into our mouths and along our eye lids. It's likely that they were initially attracted by the open soda cans and cookie packets. Our sweat brought them to our sleeping bags.

Someone had the bright idea to strip off pajamas and jump into the pool. The rest of us followed. Some girls, like myself, had loose panties that allowed those fucking ants to crawl where the sun should never shine. We frantically tried to scrub the ants away.

Ants float.

They mother fucking float! 

They make rafts with their bodies and slop along the top of the water, swarming once they find something solid.

I can't fully remember the rest of the morning. I had been bitten a lot. Our parents were called. Our sleeping bags were put into large trash bags, along with our pajamas. We put our day wear on but our skin kept crawling and we kept looking inside our shirts or under our waistbands.

I went home and my dad put me in the shower. He had to wipe ants from my body. I stood and cried and cried, afraid to look at them. He had me check my private parts while he combed through my hair. 

"The ants are gone. The ants are dead. It's okay. The ants are gone."

I was (again) afraid to walk on grass in my bare feet. I was frightened to get into bed, under covers that could trap ants. I was afraid to fall asleep. 

We went to a hardware store later that day. Together, we read how to use ant deterrents, powders, granules, sprays. It wasn't for my dad's benefit; I needed to know these things would keep me safe.

"The ants can't come inside. The ants would die. It's okay. The ants are gone."

I am still terrified of ants. Everything about them, from the way they smell to how their feet feel on my skin, sickens me. Organizations like Ants Canada have allowed me to get a better understanding of them via their videos.

Still, I can't shake the fear that an ant will crawl on me if I sit on a rock or climb a tree. "Where there's one, there's more." 

Thus I prefer to camp inside a structure surrounded by ant deterrent. No sleeping under the stars. Nope. Never again.